About 15,000 people are reported dead but, with 60,000 still missing, the death toll is expected to rise. Today, 50,000 Chinese troops moved into Sichuan to search for survivors, but landslides and adverse weather have made transportation difficult.

The international community has thus far praised the Chinese response to the disaster. Relief efforts quickly sprang into action, and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao immediately traveled to the affected area, surveying the damage and attempting to console the population.

China’s response has presented a stark contrast with Myanmar’s handling of Cyclone Nargis, John Berthelsen writes in the Asia Sentinal. The ruling junta in Myanmar has been accused of shunning international help, hampering the spread of information and withholding aid from its people.

China’s current management of the crisis also differs from the way the country has dealt with prior calamities. The government is considerably more open in its dissemination of information about the Sichuan earthquake than it was during the SARS outbreak of 2003, the snowstorms this January, and the recent Tibetan protests, according to Bloomberg.com.

Although Beijing’s leadership has been applauded for its response to the earthquake, some have criticized China for not taking strict preventative measures. The country tightened building codes after the deadly 1976 Tangshan earthquake, but those laws have been followed much more closely in urban areas than in the rural ones that suffered the most from the recent earthquake. One woman wrote in a chatroom, “Why did so many schools collapse but all the government buildings were fine? It’s outrageous!” the Los Angeles Times reports.

The death toll for the Chinese earthquake currently stands at 15,000, but 60,000 people remain missing. “Xinhua, the state's official news agency, reported this morning that 178 children from one school in northern Sichuan province had been found dead, buried under the rubble while they were napping,” British newspaper The Daily Telegraph reports.

China’s swift and frank response to the earthquake contrasts with the nation’s recent handling of the Tibet riots and its suppression of media coverage about Tibet. “There's very little effort to control information,'' said Huang Jing, of the National University of Singapore East Asian Institute. “Compared with the Tibet crisis, it looks almost like two governments.'' There is also a difference between China’s management of the earthquake and the way it handled January’s lethal snowstorms and the 2003 SARS outbreak, according to Bloomberg.com.

Although China instated tighter building codes on par with those in Japan and California following the deadly 1976 Tangshan earthquake, these codes are not always observed. Cities must follow the rules more closely than rural areas. With at least 80 schools razed by the earthquake, questions have arisen about the building codes required for schools.

China has been stricken with disaster in 2008, a year that was supposed to be a joyous celebration of the Beijing Olympics. However, the turmoil has actually increased pride in China, Voice of America reports. Danny Paau, of Hong Kong's Baptist University, said, “It seems to me that everything just drums up the nationalism … They are identifying with the government, the very quick responses. Then of course through the TV, everybody is watching—all these things."

John Berthelsen contrasts Myanmar’s response to Cyclone Nargis with China’s reaction to the earthquake. “Nothing underscores the criminal nature of the Burmese junta more than the contrast between its neglect of its people and China’s immediate reaction to the massive earthquake that devastated large parts of Sichuan province on Monday, killing as many as 10,000 people,” he writes. Even the Southeast Asian countries hit by the tsunami in 2006 handled their crises better than Myanmar has dealt with the cyclone, because they allowed the international community help.

Andrew Leonard wonders what effect the earthquake will have on the current Communist leadership. For 3,000 years China has associated natural disasters with “heaven's disfavor with whomever is currently in charge.” And in the past, new regimes hasve taken advantage of the weather to forge new governments. Now, there is no clear opposition to move into power, and the economy is still strong—for the time being, “the CCP will keep its mandate,” Leonard argues.